did you ever have a paper route?

[wayne foundation 07]

A friend of mine in grade school had a route. He was a bit of schemer and came up with a way to make extra money on his route. He would solicit nearby houses on his route to subscribe to the paper--i think these are called "starts". Anyway, when he got a new "start" he would not inform the newspaper about this new subscriber. Instead, after he had a handful of new subscribers he would go to the corner automatic newspaper dispenser, pay 25 cents but pull TEN copies or whatever he needed to supplement his route. So basically he had many "subscribers" on his route that the newspaper never knew about. So when he went to collect every month for their subscriptions fees, that money went straight in his pocket. Of course he eventually got busted when one of his subscribers called the newspaper with a complaint and of course they had no record of them being a subscriber......hahahaha

Way to try to beat the system,you had a pretty smart friend

[Hotfoot]

I WANT MY $2.00!
The kid from Better off Dead!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP9gS...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8Gcl61IsqA

[The Toyroom]

Did it for a year.....it sucked.....

[Nostalgiabuff]

oh yeah, I did two different papers too. one was once a week though. gave me some cash when i was like 12-13. hated those sunday editions though. I don't think they have kids do it anymore....I have not seen a kid deliver papers since I was a kid. it is all people doing it as a second source of income...or third

[Sideshow Spock]

Delivered the morning paper before school for a couple yrs in my early teens. Other than being chased by a doberman one morning, it was a positive experience. Made some nice cash!

[Boston71]

I had a route when I was a kid. It was about 150 papers a day. The Christmas tips were amazing.

[HardyGirl]

Being from NYC, there were no paper routes, but just to be a smarty-pants, I'll say: "Yes, I walked down the street, around the corner, and across the street to a newsstand whenever my dad would send me out for the paper."

[david_b]

I was actually a 'minor-legend' at my paper route office, back in the mid-70s..:

I started in '75 and had a small-town daily paper route for three years. In summers I'd do the morning paper route as well (the Milwaukee paper I delivered had both a morning and afternoon edition back then..). I must have had about 50-60 customers during my peak times, twice a day in summers.

But get this..: I had a trailer court about two miles out of town on the interstate roads, with about 20 customers. I road my bike out there 5 days a week for three years. When I quit delivering papers, I had all these adults come back to me, scratching their heads, wondering how I did all that on my bike all those years.

Remember, this is Wisconsin: Except for a few days in bad storms, I was on my bike delivering in rain, blizzards, you name it. Actually, the worse the weather got, the more fun it was...!!

My parents had to help me in their van deliver the huge Sunday morning editions, and then they were offered their own Sunday paper route out in the farming communities nearby in addition to helping me with my route.

It was all good money back then, but I had to save most of it for college.

I still had some change for comics, but by '76, I had stopped collecting them and Megos and was pretty much just into watching Space:1999 and Trek anyways. I remember vividly delivering the papers with the headlines that Elvis died, and the landing of Viking 1 on Mars..

david_b